Heart Problems
by Cha Oseye Tempest Thrain
Summary: Third in a series examining the process of grief
1. Part I: Loss

**Disclaimer:** I own neither NCIS or the characters involved. This is for entertainment purposes only and I make no money from these efforts.

**Spoilers**: 2005 Season Finale (_Twilight_... I believe) if there's that small chance that anyone in the universe doesn't know what happened.

**Thanks and Credits**: Thanks to kate98, the only one of my beta readers who (a) is not on an environmental mission to India and (b) watches the show, so has the faintest idea what I'm talking about.

**Author's Note**: This is part 3 of a series examining the process of grief, the first two being "Dead Poisoning" and "Talk Therapy". However, each story can stand on its own, there is no reason (aside from either interest or _my_ ego) to read the others. I wouldn't mind if you read the others though. Writing a series was not my original intention... but it has developed since I wrote the first one.

* * *

The phone rang, but he ignored it. It rang again, and he pretended he couldn't hear. A third time and then a fourth and then silence as the answering machine picked up. Thirty seconds later, the phone rang again. They'd been doing this for an hour now, you'd think whoever was on the other end would get the message, or leave a message and go the hell away.

He picked it up but said nothing.

"DiNozzo? Get your ass in he…"

"I'm sick." Tony cut Gibbs off mid-word, not caring that this was Gibbs to whom he spoke and it would be safer to tell God to shut up and go away. He hung up, barely reflecting that it was a little ironic that Gibbs would play phone games like this, given the way his ex-wife kept doing it to him.

The phone started ringing again, so he took the receiver out of the cradle and laid it down on the counter-top. He hadn't lied. He was sick, and the phone was driving him crazy.

He left the kitchen and Gibbs swearing at the Formica, and wandered into the living room where he flopped down onto the couch, the steel pipes that made up the frame digging through the well-worn stuffing and into his body. They hurt, but then again, so did everything else. His head hurt, his stomach hurt, even his joints hurt. He was tired, despite ten hours sleep, two cups of coffee and a glass of orange juice. He hadn't eaten. He wasn't hungry.

_This place is a garbage pit_. He stared blankly at the coffee table, nearly invisible under the piles of newspapers, magazines, journals (Journal of Law and Economics… now wasn't _that_ a heart-thumper), coffee-cups, old dishes covered with the remains of meals, potato chip bags, take-out containers and a pair of socks. The rest of the room wasn't much better – his television supported a colony of mouldering juice glasses and a highly desiccated sandwich. On the plus side, the trash obscured the fact that his thread-bare carpet was the kind of puke-green rarely found outside of amusement parks where junk-food and vertigo created things you really didn't want to walk on. If he got up and moved to the bedroom, there'd be the two months worth of laundry on the floor and sheets that could only be called crisp because they needed a good bleach and starch. As for the third room of this three-room apartment (or so they called it), well, he didn't want to think about what might be living in his bathroom. He needed to hire a cleaning lady. He needed to rent a blow-torch.

He levered himself up off the couch and headed for the bedroom anyway, taking a slight detour into the kitchen to drop the phone back into its cradle. Gibbs was probably done swearing anyway. It was a favour, really. The man had an extensive vocabulary and rarely got the time to display it.

In the bedroom, Tony crawled into his bed and cocooned himself in the covers, despite the fact that it had to be nearly seventy-five degrees outside. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe the weather had changed – Tony hadn't bothered to look through the grimy windows and check.

He heard something. It sounded like the door. Maybe someone had come to kill him. That would be a relief. Maybe it was Gibbs come to kill him. That would be justice.

"My lord." Well, that wasn't Gibbs' voice unless he'd gotten very sneaky. "Tony?" Ducky didn't sound like he expected to find a live body in this mess. At least the old man was prepared.

_Hell_. This would be an approximation of the underworld for someone as fastidious as Donald Mallard M.D. Tony remembered that rambling house, so perfectly cared for, despite the nut-case mother and her yappy brood of dander factories. Gibbs must be extremely pissed off to send his favourite M.E. into a place like this. The question was, how had… right. Gibbs must have raided Tony's desk and grabbed his spare keys.

"Tony?" Ducky was closer this time, probably at the bedroom door. "Jethro said you weren't feeling well. I've come to see how you're doing."

Well, that was a waste of time. Ducky should have waited. It wouldn't be long now before Tony was a suitable patient for a pathologist. He hoped.

On the other hand, Ducky was a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. Tony knew, he'd met the man's mother. Hours of being poked with a cane, confused with a gigolo, a furniture mover and a dog-groomer had him convinced: he never wanted to see another old lady in his life.

Tony grunted. Then he sighed and rolled over, staring at the ceiling.

Ducky made his way forward and gingerly sat down on the edge of Tony's bed. "Good lord, I've seen people with dementia living in neater places than this." Pulling out a thermometer, he popped it into Tony's mouth then grabbed Tony's wrist to check his pulse. Tony didn't move. Whatever Ducky did, it wasn't going to change anything. _I'm sick_. Hearing the news from a doctor didn't change that fact. Making it official wouldn't make Gibbs any happier, either. Gibbs seemed to think that all you had to do was _order_ someone to get better, and it would happen. Okay, so it had, but that didn't mean it would happen _every_ time. After all, what if he didn't want to get better? What if he just wanted to lie here and rot? It wouldn't make much difference to the smell either way.

"Well, your temperature seems normal." Ducky consulted the thermometer then tucked it away. "But your heart-rate is somewhat elevated, unsurprising given the amount of stress you've faced…"

"I'm not stressed." Stressed was when people were in the process of shooting at you, or when you had to testify in court, or when…

"Tony. It's always difficult to lose a colleague and a friend." Ducky gave him what, for Ducky, could be called a stern look. He was, however, well named. Tony didn't flinch.

"I'm just sick. That's all. I don't go to work when I'm sick."

"Tony…"

"I deserve sick days. Did I come in when I had the plague?"

"No, but only because Gibbs threatened to break your arms and your legs and fire you if you did."

Tony sulked. Why couldn't Ducky go senile like an old man should? Why did he have to remember things like… well, details? And why did he have to be so goddamned sympathetic? "I've lost colleagues before, Ducky. I know how it goes." You went to the funeral, you went back to work and you did your job. This wasn't related to Kate's death at all. "I'm sick."

"Tony…"

"Go away." Tony closed his eyes. "You're not doing me any good, so just leave me alone."

"You need…" Ducky didn't give up easy. He never did.

"Goodbye, _Doctor_." Tony sneaked a peek and caught the pain on Ducky's face. The old man got up and left, and Tony felt his chest constrict suddenly with a new pain of his own. He sucked in a breath that didn't want to come, wondering if this wasn't the plague back for another round, Death come to claim what he'd been cheated.

_Oh, God._ It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. The last words on Kate's lips had been an insult. They'd picked on each other until the end. He never told her the truth.

_I was jealous_. Jealous because she was a natural, picking up detective work faster than anyone had a right to. Jealous because she fit in so easily, making friends with everyone, impressing Gibbs from the start. He wondered if she'd ever known that. If she'd figured out that Gibbs offering her that job was high praise indeed, that despite NCIS' reputation as the dumping ground for burnt-out law enforcement, Gibbs only took on smart people, bright people, tough people.

He'd admired her, the way she stood up to them all, ready with the comebacks and refusing to be cowed. Tony had _respected_ that… he hated it when people let him walk all over them, and so many people did.

God, how it hurt to breathe. Tears burned at his eyes then escaped, fleeing down his face and soaking into the pillowcase. They began a chain reaction, turning each breath into a sob that shook every piece of him, jacking his heart-rate until he could feel it pounding in his chest, his head, his arms and his legs. What was happening? He shouldn't feel like this; he was a cop, and cops were supposed to be able to handle little things like death and dying. Gibbs could handle it. Gibbs wasn't bawling his eyes out in some dead-end trash-pile of an apartment like some baby that wanted a soother and his mommy. Why the hell hadn't Gibbs let him quit? He should have. Gibbs didn't suffer screw-ups. He didn't like weaklings. _McGee_ was made of sterner stuff than Tony. McGee wasn't lying around crying.

This was all wrong. He hadn't cried when his mother died, so why was he crying now? Surely not just because Kate's death had been sudden and violent and so close Tony felt it. He'd chosen to live a life that involved violence; shouldn't he be able to deal with it? He'd never had a problem with it before, so why now?

Eventually the attack faded, his breathing slowing down, the tears ceasing to flow. He heard a noise and looked up to see Ducky standing in the doorway, a steaming mug in each hand.

"Darjeeling… I'm a little surprised." Once again, Ducky navigated the minefield of clothes between the door and the bed. "It was going to be hot-chocolate, but your milk is the wrong colour. Blue, I've seen, but I don't think it's quite healthy when it's green. Interestingly, this is probably how you managed to survive the _Y-Pestis,_ now that I see this place. Your immune system has had quite the opportunity to build itself up, if this is what it deals with on a daily basis."

"Why are you still here?" Tony sat up and took the proffered mug, sipping the tea and finding it heavily laden with sugar. The hot liquid soothed his raw throat and helped warm him inside-out. There was no recrimination in his question, just curiosity. What had possessed Ducky to stay, and to brave the lurking monster that was Tony's refrigerator?

"Gibbs has been rather concerned about you, Tony. We all have. I know you think you're supposed to 'hold it together' like you imagine that I do and that Jethro does… but that is not a natural response, nor is it a healthy one."

"Why, Ducky? We didn't get along, we fought all the time, so why should I feel so goddamn miserable about it?" The words came out before he could stop them and once they were said, he realised he really did need an answer. Who better to ask than someone who'd lived enough and lost enough to really know?

"Because she was a very large part of our lives, and now she's gone and we can't get her back." Ducky sounded very subdued, like he hurt from the same pains that Tony felt. Maybe he did. Maybe you didn't get used to things like this, no matter how much death you dealt with. "And despite what you may think, this has affected Jethro, too. Everyone deals with things differently. He's very concerned about losing you, as well."

"Why?" His voice still scratched, and it caught against his sore throat.

"Because he has three ex-wives and no living relatives," Ducky said, dryly. "His team is the closest thing to family he has… and aside from myself, no one has stuck with him longer than you have."

"I…" He'd never realised that. He'd stayed because… because well, when it came down to it, Gibbs was a good boss. Gibbs put up with Tony's quirks and had never made fun of his background, something other supervisors had seemed unable to resist. And he'd learned a lot from Gibbs. Where else was Tony going to find someone willing to mentor him? Gibbs was the irreplaceable one, not Tony.

"When was the last time you spoke to your father?" Ducky's question seemed to come out of nowhere.

"I don't know. A couple of years ago, maybe?" Not much, just a quick phone call at Christmas or something.

"When's Jethro's birthday?"

Tony answered immediately. "Come on, I got him that carving knife, remember? Because he's so into building that boat of his that…" He stopped, seeing the half-smile on Ducky's face. "You're saying that I'm closer to Gibbs than I am to my own father. I can name my father's birthday, too." He shook his head. "But what does that have to do with Kate? I mean, I understand that Gibbs feels responsible for his team and what happens to us, but why can't _I_ deal with it?" He felt his heart race, skip, then slam hard against his ribs. "What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing, Tony. This is a perfectly normal response to loss. You've been through a lot these past few months, not only with Caitlin's death, but with some close calls of your own. It's small wonder your body is trying to tell you to take a rest."

"You're saying I'm sick, because I'm sad?" What kind of sense did _that_ make?

"More because you're not letting yourself _be_ sad." Ducky finished his tea and stood up. "I'll tell Jethro that you're alive and that I've recommended that you do take the day off. I don't recommend you stay here, though." Ducky's nose wrinkled with distaste. "This place is enough to depress even me."

Tony laughed, hollowly. "It's always like this. I figure if I ever die here, I'll give Abby the present of the most complicated crime-scene possible." He felt guilty as soon as he said it. How could he talk of death to this gentle man who cared so much for people's lives? How dare he say things so callously? What kind of monster was he?

Ducky just smiled. "Give it time, Tony. Let things happen as they do."

Time. That was the problem, though, wasn't it? How much time did they have? To say the important things, the ones no one got around to saying? If Kate's death could teach him anything, it was that the answer was 'not much.'


	2. Part II: Appraisal

**Disclaimer, Credits and Notes:** Please see Part I

* * *

He didn't let himself think about what he was doing. If he thought, his insecurities would take over again and he'd back out. Instead, he just pressed the buzzer and waited. 

"Hello?" He barely recognised the voice, distorted by bad electronics.

"It's me. Can I…" He didn't even get to finish the sentence before the door buzzed, allowing him entry.

He didn't bother waiting for the elevator, instead he took the stairs, two at a time, needing to get to her while he could, before it was too late. Too late for what, that didn't matter. Anything could happen, seconds were precious.

She opened the door on his first knock, dark eyes wide and worried. "Tony? Are you okay?"

He didn't answer, just pulled her into a tight hug. "You're precious, Abby. I just wanted you to know that."

"Okay." Abby's voice sounded muffled, as though she was having trouble finding air to breathe. "I can go with that."

He let her go, just slightly. "I mean that. I needed to make sure that you knew…"

She took his head in her hands. "You're precious too, Tony. Do you want to come in?"

He nodded, relieved. He should have known she'd understand. Abby always did. That was their secret, their connection. He was the rich kid from the big house and the prep-school, she grew up in the tiny house next to the junkyard, but they understood each other. They were the outsiders, the perpetual kids who somehow managed to be best friends despite the differences. Abby was the only person he really felt _comfortable_ with, for hours at a time, never feeling the urge to show off or impress, never worried about what she might be thinking about him.

She was perceptive too, catching the bow of his shoulders and the puffiness of his eyes, and recognising them for what they meant. "Here. You should lie down." She threw some couch cushions on the floor, creating pillows. They lay down, side by side, like children, just staring at the ceiling and the strange patterns like they were clouds.

"I miss her." Abby broke the silence, voicing their common thoughts.

"Me too." He wondered what McGee would think if he saw this; he probably wouldn't be able to understand. If Tony weren't a part of it, _he_ wouldn't be able to understand it either, but he and Abbs were as close as it was possible for two people to platonically be. She was the first person he'd ever been able to truly be honest with, about good points and bad. He couldn't even imagine the possibility of losing her.

"That's okay, Tony." She patted his hand, reassuring him. "Kate's very missable."

"Yeah." Six months ago, he would have said he'd miss her like the plague, but he didn't miss the plague at all. The Kate-shaped void, though… when would that wound heal?

"You should have heard Gibbs this morning. Man, was he pissed. He told Ducky that if you weren't dying, he'd make sure that you were." Abby paused. "I think he was worried. You know how mad he gets when he's scared. And you haven't been yourself lately."

"Who have I been?" Probably someone people liked better.

Abby smacked him in the side. "You've just been very moody. Very un-Tony."

"An-tony." He hoped Abby would forgive the pun, the levity at this time when levity seemed equal to sacrilege. "That's my name, all right."

Abby groaned. "That was horrible. Anyway, Ducky said that you were sick and then he and Gibbs had this really long talk – and they wouldn't let me listen – and then Gibbs was grumpy, well, grumpier than usual for the rest of the day."

"That doesn't mean he was worried about me." Gibbs didn't worry about people. _Especially not me_. "He's probably just mad because it's another screw-up to add to the list."

Abby sat up and looked over at him. "You really don't have a clue, do you?"

"About what?" He didn't move, didn't take his eye off a certain sparkle in the ceiling. Maybe he'd name it 'Kate', give her a point of light to call her own.

"Out of everybody, you're his favourite." Abby pulled her legs in to sit cross-legged. "Don't ask me why, but Gibbs likes you best."

"Don't be stupid. He had the hots for Kate." Maybe he hadn't been willing to admit it, but Tony had seen. Gibbs definitely had a thing, he just wouldn't break one of his precious rules to pursue it.

"Be that as it may, he still likes you best. I think he admires you."

"Give me a break." Now he knew she was lying. _Admire what?_ Compared to Gibbs, Tony didn't even rate. Gibbs was career Marine – the closest Tony had ever come to the military was prep-school, and he'd nearly gotten himself kicked out of that. Gibbs was a master interrogator, sometimes Tony was lucky if he could remember to ask the right questions. "He's probably just pissed off that it was Kate instead of me." He couldn't believe he said that aloud. But it was true. _It should have been me_. The only reason it was Kate was because Kate had the potential to be dangerous. Kate had been competent. Kate…

"Don't you say that!" Abby uncrossed one of her legs so she could kick him. "You take that back, Anthony DiNozzo. Nobody wants you dead, even to get Kate back."

_Not nobody_. He'd make the trade.

"And Gibbs does so like you. When you were sick, he nearly went crazy. He yelled at everybody, and I thought he was going to kill people. Don't you say that." She sounded like she was going to cry.

"I'm sorry… it's just…" He didn't know the words to say it. _It's just that I'm not used to people having a high opinion of me?_ Possibly. _It's just that I know I'm an idiot and I hate it, but I can't do anything to stop it?_ Maybe. _It's just that people lie about things like that in the hopes of getting close to money then they leave when they find out that I don't have it, and I'm so _used_ to that, that I can't imagine any other reason that people would want to hang around with a loser like me? _That was probably closer. He couldn't confess it though. Even Abby, who'd seen some of his darkest moments, didn't know that fear, the fear that people saw him as even a lesser being than someone like McGee. Even she didn't know that McGee scared the _hell_ out of Tony, with that geeky knowledge of anything electronic and his freaky sensitivity to people's feelings. He was so goddamn _perfect_ at the job. His first case manager report for the director – Gibbs forwarded it on without even _blinking_. Gibbs never did that. Tony _still_ had to write his reports two, three, and even four times just to have them 'acceptable.' How long before McGee eclipsed him and Gibbs went nuts when _he_ got sick, and Tony faded into the background, remembered only when it was time to do the dirty, mucky jobs reserved for rookies and the guys nobody wanted around?

He felt himself starting to cry for the second time in a single day. This was insane. Just more proof that he was in the wrong line of work – Ducky said toughing things out wasn't healthy, but this wasn't healthy either. It couldn't be. Cops, good cops, didn't burst out in tears like this all the time. Marines sure as _hell_ didn't burst out in tears like this all the time – not that crying when you were _hurt_ was necessarily bad, but this wasn't to hurt, he was just…

"Oh, Tony…" Abby tugged on his hand until he sat up, then pulled him into a hug. "Everybody likes you. Even Kate liked you."

"Yeah, right." As if. Kate thought he was a jerk, which was only fair, because he _was_ a jerk. All that time he spent picking on her, as though there'd always be a tomorrow to apologise in, as though the Wheel of Time was some great, big, slow moving thing instead of a whirling roulette wheel and you never knew when it would come up black.

"Tony…" Abby let him go. "Why can't you believe that? Why are you always so worried about what people think? And don't tell me you don't, because you do."

"Of course I do… because when you're gone, all that's left is other people's memories."

"Tony, you are not going to die." As if Abby had any say in the matter.

"You don't know that. I don't know that. I could die tomorrow, or maybe it'll be Gibbs or maybe it'll be Ducky or you, or McGee…"

Abby said nothing.

"It's just… I keep asking myself… _why?_ We'd _won_. We'd beat the bad-guys, you're not supposed to die _then_." So it was comic-book/television/movie philosophy, but wasn't that what the world ran on these days? If Gibbs could play Dirty Harry and blow up a guy's trailer, why the _hell_ had Kate been killed in that moment of success? _Earlier_ he could have understood. Firefights were crazy, and it was nothing personal. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was still jealous – even in dying, Kate had been special.

It was more than that though. She'd thrown herself in front of a bullet to save Gibbs, and all Tony had done was stand there while Ari put that other bullet through Kate's head.

"It's not your fault." Abby seemed able to read his thoughts. "You couldn't have known. I know you like to think so, sometimes, but you're not Superman. You barely outran a car-bomb."

He snorted. "Yeah… and look how much good saving her life did. The next day…"

"She'd had another day to live. Don't make it all your fault. You're a sweet guy, Tony. Even McGee thinks you're cool."

No he didn't. McGee had probably had a great day today, without the constant presence of his number one abuser. "Don't lie to me. He'd _way_ rather have Kate back."

"Arrgh." Abby picked up a cushion and hit him with it. "We'd _all_ rather have Kate back, but not at the expense of you. Get that through your thick, Tony DiNozzo skull."

"Well, you got that right." Thick-skull, numbskull… that was his trademark. _I'd rather be homeless than you, McGee_. Hadn't he said that? It was true, too… Anthony DiNozzo was so stupid that he _pretended_ to be stupid just so people wouldn't realise he was smart.

"Tony…" Abby closed her eyes for a second, exasperated. "Stay there." She got up and disappeared into the kitchen – Tony could hear dishes clanking around. He remembered he hadn't eaten yet… did Abby somehow think food was the solution to all his problems?

_It couldn't hurt_. The dark, nasty voice of reason that lurked in the hidden recesses of his mind snapped out at him. He hated that voice because it was usually right, telling him things he didn't want to hear. _Doctor's advice…_

He sighed. Did everybody in the world know about his blood-sugar problems? Did they think _that_ was the source of his misery?

She emerged with two enormous bowls piled high with ice-cream, whipped cream and drenched in chocolate sauce. The junk-food junkie's ultimate fix – despite himself, he drooled.

"Chocolate is not a food, it's a mood-altering drug." Abby announced, sitting down and handing him one of the bowls. "It gives you that same feeling you get when you fall in love… it reminds me of the first time I snuck into the junkyard and found these cars… they were _so_ messed up… one even still had bloodstains on the hood. I mean, how cool is that? What does it remind you of?"

"I don't know." Falling in love… that wasn't a feeling, it was a disaster. She always turned out to be married, or a lesbian or – increasingly more common and even more disturbing – a possible murderer. "NCIS. You, Gibbs, Kate, Ducky… busting the bad guys." And now even that was tainted.

"You need a hobby," Abby opined. "I mean, even Gibbs has his boat. Your entire life is work, isn't it?"

How did she do that? How did she manage to see through every fiction he'd carefully constructed and find the truth between the lines? Everything important in his life _was_ in that office, and there was a big vacuum there with nothing to fill it. Chocolate turned sour in his mouth, he dropped his spoon into his bowl and set it aside.

"Come on, Tony. There's nothing wrong with having a life outside of work." Abby put her own ice-cream down and gave him one of her puppy-stares, not that she'd call it that, but it was.

"Welcome to cop-dom, Abbs. We never leave the job behind. Didn't you know that most cops get divorced more often than Gibbs? If they get married at all?" Maybe not entirely true, but divorce was high, mostly because the department was like the priesthood, more calling than job. You couldn't leave it behind and go home to your wife and kids, crime didn't happen on any sort of schedule. Long hours, high-risk… and it certainly wasn't attractive for the money.

It was why he'd never commit, though. He wouldn't do that, wouldn't lie to someone that he'd be there for her, that they could have a life together, because he knew he couldn't offer it. She'd always come in second to somebody dead, or somebody missing; it just wouldn't be fair.

"That's not all true, and you know it." Abby sounded exasperated. "You know, if Kate didn't like you, she would have busted you for harassment _months_ ago. Kate would have done it."

"She'd just lost one job," Tony countered. "She wouldn't risk losing another by taking on the establishment. Kate was smart."

"Yes, she was. And it was fun having someone around to talk to sometimes about girl-things. We all miss her. We're supposed to. That's one of the things about dying – people get left behind."

"Yeah." He fell back again onto the cushion. The sparkle was still there, winking down at him. As exhaustion settled in again, he thought he saw it move. Streaking away and moving on. Leaving him behind. He wanted to chase after it, catch it, stop it from getting away. _All that's left_… He needed to hold on, keep all the memories fresh and bright. If he did, he could keep her alive, keep her real. He could save her.


End file.
